Digital Commons Network^™

Inside The Corporate Veil: The Character And Consequences Of Executives’ Duties, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

This paper is based on a keynote address to the 2006 annual workshop of the Australian Corporate Law Teachers' Association on "The Pathology of Corporate Law." The paper's thesis is that fuller understanding of many corporate malfunctions requires examination of organizational structures and patterns of interaction below the level of the board within a corporation's hierarchy. The paper argues that there is merit to mandating duties of skill and care at the executive level, drawing on examples of executive conduct in recent corporate fiascos. The paper also explores the application of the business judgment rule to officers. As conventionally formulated, …

The Promise (And Limits) Of Neuroeconomics, Jedediah Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

Neuroeconomics - the study of brain activity in people engaged in tasks of reasoning and choice - looks set to be the next behavioral economics: a set of findings about how people make decisions that casts both light and doubt on widely accepted premises about rationality and social life. This essay explains what is most exciting about the new field and lays out some specific research tasks for it. By enabling researchers to view the mind at work, neuroeconomics calls into question the value of a methodological premise of twentieth-century empiricism, sometimes called positivism or behaviorism: that people are black …

Evidence History, The New Trace Evidence And Rumblings In The Future Of Proof, Robert P. Mosteller

Faculty Scholarship

This paper is in two parts. The first part is about developments in the rules of evidence and particularly about developments in the federal rules of evidence, which has had a major impact on evidence rules in many states. This part turns out to be largely about the past because my sense is that the impact of changes in the formal rules of evidence, which were substantial, are largely historic. To be sure future changes in the formal rules, particularly those that may be made as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford v. Washington (2004) that dramatically …

The Evolution Of Asbestos Bankruptcy Trust Distribution Plans, Francis Mcgovern

Faculty Scholarship

The evolution of asbestos litigation from the early 1970s to the present has become the source of much analysis. One commentator divides this history into several phases: the heroic phase, bureaucratic floundering, adaptation and maturity, search for global settlement, expansion of the number of cases, and legislative reform in a new era. A neglected aspect of the history of asbestos litigation has been the evolution of asbestos bankruptcy trust distribution plans. Since 1982 there have been more than 70 corporations which have filed bankruptcy proceedings because of their exposure to asbestos liability. As these corporations emerge from bankruptcy, their plans …

Selling The Name On The Schoolhouse Gate : The First Amendment And The Sale Of Public School Naming Rights, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Does Falling Smoking Lead To Rising Obesity?, Jonathan Gruber, Michael D. Frakes

Faculty Scholarship

The strong negative correlation over time between smoking rates and obesity have led some to suggest that reduced smoking is increasing weight gain in the U.S.. This conclusion is supported by the findings of Chou et al. (2004), who conclude that higher cigarette prices lead to increased body weight. We investigate this issue and find no evidence that reduced smoking leads to weight gain. Using the cigarette tax rather than the cigarette price and controlling for non-linear time effects, we find a negative effect of cigarette taxes on body weight, implying that reduced smoking leads to lower body weights. Yet …

Circling Around The Confrontation Clause: Redefined Reach But Not A Robust Right, Lisa Kern Griffin

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s consolidated ruling in United States v. Davis and United States v. Hammon is a classic of the genre of consensus opinions to which the Roberts Court aspired in its first, transitional term. The opinion, authored by Justice Scalia, contains practical accommodations unusual in a decision by the Court’s fiercest proponent of first principles. The restraint that characterized the term is, of course, more about considerations of logistics (including the desire to avoid re-arguments after the mid-term replacement of Justice O’Connor) than about the alignment of logic. Because it reflects temporary institutional constraints rather than intellectual agreement, the …

Why It Mattered To Dover That Intelligent Design Isn’T Science, Richard B. Katskee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Affirming Michigan’S Action: The Michigan Journal Of Race & Law's Response To Dr. Carcieri's Grutter V. Bollinger And Civil Disobedience, Adam Blumenkrantz, Jason Belmont Conn, Amrita Mallik, Michael Murphy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Complex Links Between Governance And Biodiversity, C. Barrett, C. Gibson, B. Hoffman, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

We argue that two problems weaken the claims of those who link corruption and the exploitation of natural resources. The first is conceptual. Studies that use national level indicators of corruption fail to note that corruption comes in many forms, at multiple levels, and may or may not affect resource use. Without a clear causal model of the mechanism by which corruption affects resources, one should treat with caution any estimated relationship between corruption and the state of natural resources. The second problem is methodological: Simple models linking corruption measures and natural resource use typically do not account for other …

Dunlap’S Very Subjective Reading List For Air Force Judge Advocates, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Criminal Justice Collapse: The Constitution After Hurricane Katrina, Brandon L. Garrett, Tania Tetlow

Faculty Scholarship

The New Orleans criminal justice system collapsed after Hurricane Katrina, resulting in a constitutional crisis. Eight thousand people, mostly indigent and charged with misdemeanors such as public drunkenness or failure to pay traffic tickets, languished indefinitely in state prisons. The court system shut its doors, the police department fell into disarray, few prosecutors remained, and a handful of public defenders could not meet with, much less represent, the thousands detained. This dire situation persisted for many months, long after the system should have been able to recover. We present a narrative of the collapse of the New Orleans area criminal …

On The Maximum Span Of Fixed-Angle Chains, Nadia Benbernou, Joseph O’Rourke

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Soss proved that it is NP-hard to find the maximum flat span of a fixed-angle polygonal chain: the largest distance achievable between the endpoints in a planar embedding. These fixed-angle chains can serve as models of protein backbones. The corresponding problem in 3D is open. We show that two special cases of particular relevance to the protein model are solvable in polynomial time: when all link lengths are equal, and all angles are equal, the maximum 3D span is achieved in a flat configuration and can be computed in constant time. When all angles are equal (but the link lengths …

Welfare Polls: A Synthesis, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

"Welfare polls" are survey instruments that seek to quantify the determinants of human well-being. Currently, three welfare polling formats are dominant: contingent valuation (CV) surveys, quality-adjusted life year (QALY) surveys, and happiness surveys. Each format has generated a large, specialized, scholarly literature, but no comprehensive discussion of welfare polling as a general enterprise exists.This Article seeks to fill that gap.

Part I describes the trio of existing formats. Part II discusses the current and potential uses of welfare polls in governmental decisionmaking. Part III analyzes in detail the obstacles that welfare polls must overcome to provide useful well-being information, and …

Popular Constitutionalism And The Rule Of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Behavioural Genetics In Criminal Cases: Past, Present And Future, Nita A. Farahany, William Bernet

Faculty Scholarship

Researchers studying human behavioral genetics have made significant scientific progress in enhancing our understanding of the relative contributions of genetics and the environment in observed variations in human behavior. Quickly outpacing the advances in the science are its applications in the criminal justice system. Already, human behavioral genetics research has been introduced in the U.S. criminal justice system, and its use will only become more prevalent. This essay discusses the recent historical use of behavioral genetics in criminal cases, recent advances in two gene variants of particular interest in the criminal law, MAOA and SLC6A4, the recent expert testimony on …

Trial By Jury Involving Persons Accused Of Terrorism Or Supporting Terrorism, Neil Vidmar

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter explores issues in jury trials involving persons accused of committing acts of international terrorism or financially or otherwise supporting those who do or may commit such acts. The jury is a unique institution that draws upon laypersons to decide whether a person charged with a crime is guilty or innocent. Although the jury is instructed and guided by a trial judge and procedural rules shape what the jury is allowed to hear, ultimately the laypersons deliberate alone and render their verdict. A basic principle of the jury system is that at the start of trial the jurors should …

Checks And Balances: Congress And The Federal Court, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Scholarship

This essay was published as a chapter in Reforming the Supreme Court: Term Limits for Justices (Paul D. Carrington & Roger Cramton eds, Carolina Academic Press 2006). Its point is that Congress has long neglected its duty implicit in the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers to constrain the tendency of the Court, the academy and the legal profession to inflate the Court's status and power. The term "life tenure" is a significant source of a sense of royal status having not only the adverse cultural effects noted by Nagel, but also doleful effects on the administration and enforcement of …

The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism: Prospects For Japan-Philippines Partnership, Rosalina Palanca-Tan

Economics Department Faculty Publications

The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a system by which a developed country can earn carbon emission reduction (ER) credits through an emission-mitigating project undertaken in a developing country. While allowing developed countries to meet their Kyoto Protocol commitments at less cost, CDM benefits the host developing countries with new capital investments and the transfer of clean technologies. In view of the potential supply of ERs on the Philippine side and a pressing demand on Japan's side, this article explores the relatively low level of CDM cooperation between the Philippines and Japan, and suggests ways of moving forward.

Beautiful Noise, Will Swanson

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This article aims to explore the nature of discordant sound, such as guitar feedback, in several respects: its status as music, its status as art and the extremely interesting aesthetic responses it evokes. I will argue for its value as an art form on the grounds that: (1) it is a neglected and overlooked area of music in terms of philosophical aesthetics; (2) it raises some interesting ontological questions about the nature of artworks; and (3) it highlights some key aspects of aesthetic responses, e.g., emotions and the body. Examining the works of such music artists as The Jesus and …

Gesture, Pulsion, Grain: Barthes' Musical Semiology, Michael Szekely

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Although Barthes is perhaps best known as a semiotician, he is paradoxically always in search of precisely that which defies the constraints of language, whether art, signs or, in fact, language itself. Enter the relevance of music for Barthesian aesthetics. Barthes called for a "second semiology," in contrast to the classical semiology, which would explore "the body in a state of music." In this essay, I explore Barthes' musical semiology in terms of key concepts, including gesture, pulsion, grain, and jouissance. I extend the relevancy of Barthes' concepts, often articulated within the context of the Western classical musical tradition, to …

Reflections On An Aesthetics Of Touch, Smell And Taste, Mădălina Diaconu

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Modern aesthetics regards sight and hearing as the only senses which were able to produce art. Touch, smell and taste might offer pleasant stimuli, but can never achieve the status of art objects. What are the arguments for this rejection, and are they still sustainable? This paper focuses on the general and specific difficulties of forming an aesthetics of touch, smell and taste; some can be overcome, while others are still waiting for a proper answer. At the same time, artistic movements, as well as changes in recent discussions of the aesthetics of everyday life prove the necessity of extending …

Interrupting Danto's Farewell Party Arrangements: Comments For Grigoriev, Kalle Puolakka

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper is a response to Serge Grigoriev's article "Living Art, Defining Value: Artworks and Mere Real Things" (Contemporary Aesthetics Volume 3, 2005) in which he develops Joseph Margolis' provocative Danto-criticism. He especially criticizes Danto's art-philosophical starting point, the problem of indiscernibles, claiming that it presupposes an objective value judgment that cannot be maintained and that it misrepresents the way in which people interact with art. In this article, Grigoriev's argument is found lacking mainly on two grounds. First, it overlooks where the source of Danto's starting point lies; and second, I argue that it does not lead to the …

A Reply To Puolakka, Serge Grigoriev

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

A Plea For A Cognitive Iconology Within Visual Culture, Ian Verstegen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

A place is needed for a 'cognitive iconology' within "visual culture." Like Logical Positivism before it, visual culture must reexamine its tacit assumption that conflation of psycho-sociological contributions to visual meaning is an adequate methodology, and that sociologism is a worthwhile overriding philosophy. Cognitive iconology isolates the psychological contribution to the study of images and does not monopolize it but isolates the foundational basis for it on which narrower interpretations must be built. With examples from the work of Titian, it is shown how the cognitive and 'cultural' contributions must work together to make meaning. Using the philosophy of Maurice …

The Color Of The Sublime Is White, Jeffrey Downard

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In this paper, I examine Melville's discussion in Moby Dick of the whiteness of the whale from the perspective of a Kantian account of the sublime. My aim, in the first instance, is to see if the comparison helps to shed light on Melville's puzzling discussion of the color white and why this color serves to heighten the feeling of being overwhelmed by terror when confronted with something extremely large or powerful. In turn, I intend to use Melville's discussion of whiteness to put pressure on some of the philosophical assumptions behind a Kantian analysis of the sublime. In particular, …

Realism And The Riddle Of Style, Catharine Abell

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Internal Control Over Financial Reporting - Guidance For Smaller Public Companies, Volume I : Executive Summary, Committee Of Sponsoring Organizations Of The Treadway Commission

Association Sections, Divisions, Boards, Teams

No abstract provided.

New Urbanist Zoning For Dummies, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Gambling For Certainty: Luck, Chance, And Uncertainty In Politics, Mindy Peden, Nicole M. Elias

Publications and Research

How much of what we do is the result of our will, and how much the result of chance or luck or fortune? This is a decidedly un-decidable question, but one that needs to be asked. The general assumption seems to be that a person's "lot" in life is physically, morally, politically, even romantically linked to choice. But the use of the term "lot" betrays the underlying uncertainty of what "causes" our "lot", laying bare questions of responsibility, burden, and even explanation. Much (perhaps at the very least 50% according to Machiavelli) of what happens in our lives can be …